“Auralization,” the Technology That Lets You Listen to a Room Before It’s Built

by Audrey Gray

Noise can cripple an environment, so acousticians are using immersive sound technology to more accurately predict and prevent a barrage of distractions.

In 2013, the Cambridge, Massachusetts–based consulting firm and sound specialist Acentech was presented with a big challenge. It had begun advising travel-industry tech client TripAdvisor on the construction of the company’s headquarters for hundreds of employees in Needham, outside Boston. The suburbs, in other words, where there aren’t many places nearby for those employees to grab lunch. So it was decided that everyone would be fed onsite in a giant, four-story atrium, which would double as an amphitheater for company-wide meetings. That decision presented a serious noise problem.

Read the full article at Metropolis.